sueeeus

I distinctly remember when my own mother was 42, and how old I thought she was. She had announced her 9th pregnancy and I remember being so upset with her for being so irresponsible, bringing another child into the world and at that age. I was 17, graduating from high school and on my way to university, and was certain that I was quite adult enough to know and say these things. How awful of me, and that phrase ‘never say never’ has so many times reared its head and forced me to swallow an ounce or two of pride. Now I’m 42. I don’t feel anything like the age I projected on my mother, all those years ago.

We had a long weekend trip to Reno which turned out to be fun, apart from the cacophany of slot machines and persistent wafting cigarette smoke. There is a pretty river a few blocks from the hotel with a very nice walking path. We had all four seasons in just one weekend – sun, wind, rain, and snow. I gambled 20 cents in a penny slot machine and decided it was an entirely stupid waste of time. I am not a gambler at heart, and just. don’t. get. it. At the airport MG plugged a $5 bill into a machine for me, to increase the thrill, you know. That took all of two minutes to disappear. The wheel of fortune granted me some winnings, but quickly took them right back. The inlaws, self-labelled casino experts, explain that you don’t win big unless you play big. That’s why the front street is lined with pawn shops bursting with merchandise that people trade for that one next chance to make it big. That’s why those multi-bazillion-dollar casino monstrosities are dripping with stained glass masterpieces, fountains, and other architectural details. There are so many more losers than winners, but that bait certainly draws many. Granted, it would feel good to put down a bet and walk away with a bundle, but the flip side isn’t appealing at all. I’m a firm believer in earning. Work. Get paid. It makes sense. There’s balance. Equilibrium in the universe. The in-laws are some of those people who park themselves in front of a slot machine and push that button for hours on end. They seem to eventually ‘win’. They have these ‘comps’ — credits that accrue with each push of the button, that can be redeemed for casino amenities such as room and board. Somehow they were able to stay in a whirlpool tub suite, the kind you see in movies, and treat us to several lush meals, and walk away from the entire weekend with a net payment of less than a hundred dollars. They kept insisting ‘it’s all free’ and I just couldn’t grasp it. My mind whirls over the amount of money they had to have plugged into those machines in order to accrue that many ‘comps’. They insist that they walk away in the plus, but I just can’t quite believe it. We walked away from that weekend with a net minus of about a thousand dollars, after airfare and hotel. They shake their heads at me, because I don’t take those big risks. But I just don’t have it in me. And thank GOD, neither does MG. He did spend several hours in the casino, hanging out with his brother and sometimes playing on his brother’s card. When he came back to the hotel room, he told me he’d lost $400. I was a bit sick over that. We had a $100 mad money budget, for the whole weekend. I didn’t rail, though. We were there to visit his brother – Brother Gadget (BG). BG has recently recovered from cancer, and he’s only 44. We are all grateful that he’s alive and with us. His hair is growing back and he’s putting on a little weight, but he’s still very weak and very thin. MG was gambling on BG’s card, after losing his $100, and BG didn’t seem to mind a bit that MG had lost $300 of his. He kept saying it was just comps, and not to worry about it. On the last night MG went to spend a little more time with BG and a winning streak ensued, so MG got a little bit back and BG and wife walked away with $3000. So they were happy and I was relieved. Still. I don’t thing they fess up to how much they lost, and I don’t think they do a net tally. They just sort of ignore the losses and accentuate the wins.

Reno, the complete den of iniquity that it is, has a casino for kids. Circus Circus. That was more my speed. They have arcade booths with winnable prizes. We let Boo play some of the coin toss and ball toss games. I played a cork gun game and won him a nice stuffed animal, for only $1. We spent around $15 there, much of which was thrown promptly away, but we also won seven stuffed animals. Boo has a menagerie of fluffy stuffies to snuggle with now. I dread the day when he’s old enough to want to play at things like that on his own. I will have to instill the work ethic before that day comes.

We got home the day before my birthday, so we could rest up. It feels so. good. to. be. home. For my birthday, MG and I dropped off Boo with his babysitter, so we could go to the movies. We’ve been twice in two years. It’s just not something we can do with a toddler in tow. We saw The Last Mimsy. It was adorable. I like family films. After that we went shoe shopping. All three of us now have a pair of sandals for the warm weather days ahead. We collected Boo and went out for Chinese dinner. My Boo loves Chinese noodles, and slurps happily away.

MG presented me with a beautiful cake, and my new hard drive arrived in the mail. It’s very compact (see mouse for perspective of scale). I am pleased. It’s a NAS (Network Access Storage) – a mini-server. It has 500GB of storage and an ethernet port so I plan to offload all my photos and music to this device, to free up the memory in my computer so that hopefully it will run better. It’s supposed to work as a print server also, so perhaps we can clean up our PC and network configurations as well.

All in all, it was a very good day.

When each morning for the past couple of weeks I am greeted with a not-so-friendly message that my computer has recovered from a serious error, and would I like to read the details in the error log, I wonder to myself whether my trusty desktop might be nearing the end of its useful life and the thought briefly passes through my mind that it might behoove me to back up my data.  However, I have not yet backed up my data.  I should.  I know.  I did back it up in December.  Mostly.  Sigh.  One more of the things in my life I want to organize, sort, scour, or purge.

Maybe tomorrow.  Or the next day.  Or the weekend.  Or next weekend. 

I did, however, do something wild and out of the ordinary.  I bought a brand spanking new laptop.  I’ve been looking at them for some time, but have always talked myself out of it.  All those ominous error messages of impending doom sort of scared me into action, though.  Plus, the bonus I received at work last week helped as well.  Woohoo!  Bonuses are always good.  Few and far between, to be sure, but very welcome when they happen. 

So, here I am, with my fancy new machine, sitting on the couch blogging, while Mr. Gadget watches American Idol and Mr. Busy Body stands on a step stool surveying his domain, considering what toys he will play with next.  The child loves to climb on things, and thankfully, a step stool satisfies his climbing tendencies while maintaining a fairly close proximity to the floor and relative safety (apart from the obstacle course of toys scattered at his feet).

I am sitting on the couch blogging.  Imagine it!   Although, I still feel guilty, but at least my body is in the same room as the rest of my family.

The computer is kind of odd-looking.  It’s a Dell E1705, which has a giant screen (with incredible definition and resolution – yay!) and a tiny keyboard.  I don’t know why they didn’t put a larger keyboard in it, since it has the real estate.  I was going to wait for them to improve upon that before jumping in and buying one, but there was the writing on the wall….  ….so I didn’t wait.  It’s got Windows Vista, which I also wasn’t too enthused about.  At least not for a few months, in case they need to work out the kinks.  And surely there will be kinks.  I’m okay with it, though.  All of it.  Because it’s new!  I have a new computer!  Woohoo!

At work, suffocating.
Load notices, install this, open tech line, disable that, open this, start that, limit this, load that, shut down this, install that, upgrade this, install that, that, that, and that, setup this, run that, reconfigure this, modify that, synch this, recover that, install this, modify that, rename this, copy that, run this, delete that, recycle this, start that and that, set this, deploy that, create this, repeat that, disable this, remove that, stop this, checkout that, stop this, enable that, buyoff, and we’re a go.  And that’s just part of one of my side jobs.

At home, drowning.
The man of the house has had satellite dish tv installed.  Now there are five remote control units because four were not enough, and thirty thousand channels from which to choose (because ten thousand were not enough), but where are the plain old local networks, and why aren’t they in HD   Convoluted help screens with menus embedded in menus with display options and aspect ratios and picture interlacing options.  With all this technological advancement, it seems that we are supposed to place an old-fashioned antenna on the rooftop in order to receive the local channels.  If this is the case, then why do we pay a king’s ransom for this service   And why do these channels come in with crystal clarity via the cable service   We were trying to extricate ourselves from the forever increasing cost of the cable service, but it doesn’t appear that the satellite service improves upon anything, when it’s all said and done, and the only outcome that I can see is a flustered and annoyed woman of the house who just wants to watch CBS/NBC/ABC/FOX/CW/PBS.

Yearning, for simplicity.

Perhaps this year I ought to ask Santa for a new computer.  It seems like mine isn’t that old, but in the last two days it’s suffered several spontaneous reboots.  When it recovers, there is an ominous warning about Windows and serious faults, along with a not-so-helpful log of problems encountered.  Things like boot sectors and gobbledy gook.  As if that’s going to help me.  I don’t know how to make sense of that mumbo jumbo.

I ought to take heed and do some major housecleaning.  Back up all my files.  You know.  Just in case.  It’s my weekend project.  I hope that uttering these thoughts hasn’t sealed my fate and that  I won’t wake up in the morning to a failed hard drive.  That would be just plain awful.  Of course, I could work on backing up my files right now.  But I’d rather go to bed.  Everyone else is asleep, and it would be a good time for me to work unencumbered.  But I’m tired too!  And Mr. Gadget will surely chastise me for spending so much time on the computer.

What would I want, should I wish for a new computer   Sometimes I think I might like to try a Mac, but that would mean learning a whole new set of tools, and none of the software that I already have would work.  I think I am sort of stuck with a PC until I’m ready to leave behind the suite of tools I’m already familiar with.  I think I’d like an itsy bitsy teeny weeny laptop.  Something that’s not too heavy, that I can fit in my bag.  I can always dock it with my full size keyboard and monitor, and I can undock and roam the house and blog at will, as long as it has a wireless card.  Yes, I think I might like a teensy weensy laptop.

I’ve recently been thinking that I want to attempt to embrace myself for who I am, rather than chastising or loathing myself for not being a supermodel.  This was before I saw myself on film, after reviewing some of the footage that the kind Mr. Gadget shot during my sister’s wedding, after which the loathing and disgust was renewed and rekindled.  I’m working on suppressing it, though, and along those lines, I thought I might buy myself a trendy and fashionable outfit.  So I ventured forth.  To the mall.

First.  Why is the mall parking lot crowded at 11 a.m. on a week day   Where do these people come from   Where do they get the money to shop   How do they find time to go to the mall in the middle of the day   These questions perplex me.  Surely they didn’t all leave work early because they were on the verge of another anxiety attack and they didn’t want to be in front of people they knew when the tears started falling unexpectedly and with no explanation.

I sauntered in to Nordstrom with full confidence, looking for a specific style of Merrell shoes.  They didn’t have them.  I tried on a few other styles.  They tried to sell me on the virtues of Dansko, but I tried some recently and didn’t like the feel.  Orthopedically endorsed or not, I am much more comfortable in my Keens.  If only they had some dressier styles.

Next, I wandered in to Lane Bryant, where they carry fashions for people of my stature (yet they still display them on skinny mannequins).  I saw some jeans that I fancied, until I noted the price tag.  A hundred bucks for a pair of jeans.  Good gravy, who pays that kind of money for a pair of jeans   Granted, they were fashionable, with fun stitching and decorations, but a hundred dollars   And why would I want to draw attention to my already unattractive back side by advertising with a splay of rhinestones   I browsed the rest of the store and noted that cargo pants are aplenty.  For fifty bucks a pair.  Since I recently acquired three pairs of cargo pants at Costco, for about fifty bucks TOTAL, I’m somewhat satisfied that I am possibly actually on the verge of being de la mode (and hopefully I didn’t just say I’m on the verge of being topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, although, that could be nice in certain situations).  Ahem.

I returned home empty handed, too busily muttering to myself about how I dislike malls and retail shopping, to realize that my fuel light had come on.  So I headed back out, to familiar and comfortable territory.  Costco.  Gas was $2.29 a gallon — the lowest it’s been in donkey’s years.  For under $200 I got two footed sleeper jammies for my Boo Boy, two blankets, a set of night lights, a bottle of magnesium supplements (supposedly magnesium is beneficial in thwarting anxiety), 3 lbs of broccoli florets, a huge bag of celery hearts, 10lbs of onions, a set of stainless travel mugs, 144 diapers, a case of green beans (yes, I know, fresh is better, followed by frozen, but the Boo Boy, he loves them), a huge jug of picante sauce, and a big beautiful cook book from America’s Test Kitchen.  These things are much more satisfying than 1 and 3/4 pair of fashion jeans.

Sigh.  See how much I can write while I am waiting for tech support   If I haven’t mentioned lately how much I despise (yet love) technology, let it be said.  The problem of the moment is ‘datasource not found’.  None of them.  On all my sites.  (My ColdFusion sites.)  How annoying.  I know they are there.  I see them in my control panel.  Somebody’s been messing with the servers or something, because they’re not seeing the databases.  Grrrrrrrr.  And I thought I might actually take a nap or something this afternoon.  As if.

I am using WordPress as a blogging tool, which I like very much.  I even migrated my family’s personal web site and message board to WordPress recently.  However.  There are times when it doesn’t work well or efficiently, and I’m not sure how much is related to my hosting situation, and how much is related to WordPress itself.  I’ve read on the WP technical support forums that there have been complaints of extremely slow performance with the latest version, which I’m using.  I’ve also read reviews from other forums that rate my particular hosting service as downright awful.  In either case, it’s frustrating when it’s slow, or doesn’t even respond. 

Some day, when I’m smart enough (or driven enough) to rectify the situation, I’ll make some changes, but for now, I’m not interested in fighting this particular battle.  So, my blog availability may be sporadic, and for this, I apologize (to my extensive readership –cough– ).

Is readership a word   I can’t be bothered with looking it up at present.  Although I find it interesting, and disheartening, that my vocabulary has deteriorated dramatically with age.  However, I theorize that it’s not so much age related as it is usage-related.  I think language skills tend to be ‘use it or lose it’ skills, that need to be continually exercised in order to maintain.

It’s not so much that I hate technology (although I do, I DO!), it’s that things just don’t stay the same. Ever. Why is that Why can’t things just stay put

My permalinks have crumbled and fallen into the sea. Or something to that effect. My archive links. All gone. None of them work.

Did I do anything to make this happen To my knowledge, no. NO!

And do I have an abundance of time to try and figure these things out No. NO!

Grrrrrrrrrr!!

Update:

So. For the time being, my temporary fix is to disable permalinks. When I have the time, I’ll see if I can fix the permalinks.

Until then….

GRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!

It’s not like my work makes a huge impact on humanity, or anything like that, but once in a while I do something that gives me a nice feeling of accomplishment. I built a dynamic web calendar some time ago, that provides a two month rolling window, minus the weekends. I was quite pleased that I was able to figure out how to make it, at the time, but it had room for improvement.

We have multi-tiered organizations, where I work. There are many departments, groups, and sub-groups. My calendar shows a complete group’s schedule, sorted by its sub-groups, with the supervisor and leads highlighted. The beauty of this particular calendar is that a supervisor (or anybody) can see at a glance the coverage (or lack thereof). Availability is important where I work, as we are a service organization.

Each person has control over their schedule and can input their planned out of office days. Each type of absence has its own color code. We also have flexible work schedules, where our pay periods are two week intervals. We can work non-standard schedules (within reason), as long as we work 80 hours every two weeks. In general, that means 4×10 hour days each week (a day off each week), or 80 hours/9 days each pay period (a day off every other week). I originally had a table look-up function where I had a sub-set of alternate schedule possibilities and holiday dates pre-loaded. Not very robust. It worked, but wasn’t very elegant, and I had to manually update the table each year to load the next year’s dates. And there are so many possible day off combinations. Too. Much. Work.

So. I made it calculate on the fly. It doesn’t sound like much, but I am quite pleased with myself for figuring it out. It’s not the most efficient code. It’s nearly 900 lines, after all. And, I probably reinvented the wheel, because someone else has probably already done this. All the same, I did it, and it works. For leap years, as well. Imagine that! It can calculate all the 4×10 and 9×80 alternate work schedules, and company holidays. Each day for each person, it says, hey, I am dd-mm-yy. What kind of a day am I Am I a day off Am I an alternate schedule day off Am I a vacation day Okay then. I will be color X. Next And so on. Yes, there is a LOT of looping taking place.

I noticed today that WordPress strongly recommended an upgrade, for security reasons.  As I’ve been plagued with spam, I decided to upgrade.  The thing is, my server has this fancy helpful interactive ftp doohickey for transferring files, but it’s not well suited to efficient updates of multitudes of files.  It’s more of a one by one thing.  So.  I had to find another way, which meant learning whether an old fashioned ftp thingymajiggy like we used back when unix was the only thing available, and which worked great, by the way…  That sentence ran on way too long for me to even attempt to figure out what I was trying to say… Anyway, I did find something called SmartFTP, and woohoo, it’s free!  It works like A DREAM!  Almost no learning curve necessary, and voila.  My bazillion little files that make this fabulous WordPress blog run, are now updated with the latest and greatest.

We shall see if the spammers are inhibited.  I’ve turned the comments feature back on.

Did I mention that during my upgrade, my very helpful sidekick, who loves buttons of any sort, pressed the power button on my computer   Oh.  Well.  Slight interruption in the otherwise efficient process.  And where was Mr. Gadget during this   After all, I had told him that I needed to install an upgrade this evening.  Did I need to spell out the translation that it would be nice if he could actually watch Mr. Busy Body for a few minutes.

Husbands.  Sigh.  It’s not as though I work full time myself.  Or change thirty diapers to his one.  Or prepare all the meals.  Or do all the laundry.  Or put it all away.  Or anything like that.   I’m a woman.  These are my jobs.

Duh.

Having uttered something recently to the effect that ‘I hate computers’ and all things related, the computing gods have retaliated swiftly, raining brimstone and fire on my humble little holdings. 

Brimstone and fire in the form of excessive bandwidth consumption hailed from who knows whence.  In my own paranoia, I wonder if I might be the one causing such havoc, with some sort of infection in my home LAN environment that is beyond my understanding and capabilities to detect and obliterate.  I have a firewall!  I do!  It’s configured to protect me.  At least, I think it is.  I hope it is.  I followed the instructions.  I know it is.  But what of the interim between this new firewall installation and configuration, and time as I knew it, before   I’ve been running with a few different layers of protection.  SpyBot Search and Destroy.  AVG.  AdAware.  (I think.)  Windows XP built in firewall.  But that’s it.

The evil storm consumed over 300 GIGabytes in the last 9 days.  NINE DAYS!  I doubt I’ve had 3 GB in my entire blogging life.  I recently installed my firewall.  It’s too close for comfort and has left me squirming.  What did I do   Did I do anything   I don’t think I did anything.

I’m so damn paranoid.  How I hate it when thinks go amuck.  I am very much pleased with the service I get from my hosting company.  They’ve been excellent.  What is happening now   I can’t stand not knowing.  And not being able to do anything about it. 

One thing I can do is control comments.  I’ve changed my blog properties to force registration upon commenters.  I have so few non-spam visitors.  I hope my blog friends won’t mind. 

I may eventually turn off comments altogether.  Why do people spam   It makes me sick inside, that they do these malicious things that make life so unpleasant for the rest of us decent, simple, trying-to-be-kind people…  I am SO exasperated!

I don’t blog for the general public, and I haven’t got a big ‘following’, which suits me fine.  It does feel nice when kind people make kind comments, but if I must, I will shut it down or make it private or do whatever must be done to protect my good standing with my hosting company.  I am responsible for some bonafide web sites out there, that real people, businesses, and communities use and depend on, and I can’t have anything that has anything to do with my own personal web sites bringing them down. 

Blog spam may not be the culprit, but it is very annoying.  I spend more time cleaning out spam and whinging about it, than enjoying the journey of writing out my thoughts and feelings and dealing with my day to day me-ness.  Which is why I blog.  At least, why I want to blog.

All that said, my web sites will all be down tomorrow, as their host servers are being re-located.