White Lightning Axiom: Redux

Another lame post due to my poor time management skills. It's not even that I do not have the time, I just make bad (incorrect) choices about what to do with it. SOooo, here I sit, pulling my hair over the crashing stock market, moaning about going back on the support rotation next week, and kvetching over my well tuned daily schedule being blown to bits because of the kids mid-term tests. We are skipping all activities except piano so that they can study for these remarkably BRUTAL examinations. It gets me all cranky and such when I don't get my swimming/tsd fix on a daily basis. We have still gone to piano lessons and I had the tiger cub den meeting on Wednesday night ... but it's just not the same, you know.

Technorati Tags:Stock Market | Swimming | Karate | Children | School | Work

Labels: Banalities Work, Children, Karate, School, Stock Market, Swimming

I'll have to make this quick as I am trying to wrap up 100 disparate tasks and still keep my sanity. This is going to be one of those awful 'status only' type posts to let you know that I still persevere to breath air. The Ever Lovely Mrs had a birthday this past weekend ... just a few hours short of having a leap-year birthdate. That would have been entirely too entertaining, but alas, she is still only a few years younger than the wizened old fart who she calls here husband. Additionally, the Parental Units made one of their Monthly trips to ensure that the Tyrants would treat them fairly after the Great Apocalyptic Reckoning. Oddly enough, in a bizarre convergence of events, an old college friend (Mandy) stopped by on her way from California. Atilla was busy at her girl scout-brownie-daisy Juliet Low World Thinking Day what-dat-and-chew event, so it was up to me to entertain while the Mrs was detained as glorified limo driver. Fortunately, the Super Grandma was about to do most of the heavy lifting (like making snacks ... I'm only good at making them disappear) so we were not too shamed by our lack of preparation. Sunday came and went, only to leave us with a pile of snow and some sub-freezing temperatures. I had the foresight to go out and chop a month's worth of firewood and then lug it into the manor so we had some source of BTUs for the next week. That wood burns quickly when you are trying to keep your digits from snapping off. We were fortunate in that one of our more friendly neighbors had come back from a trip to warmer climes and needed a technical resource to help him out with a malfunctioning snow-blower. I gave him a few tips on how to get it to turn over (it had been sitting for 2 years, the ignition chamber was dry and the plug was corroded) and in a fit of gratitude, he cleared our mile long drive for us. That kept me inside for and extra 2.5 hours. We were going to do a few other things, but nearly every place we went, the doors were locked. The more important places were open, of course: TSD, Dentist, Piano. Of course, the studio ended up closing on Tuesday because the electric furnace failed and the ambient air temperature dropped to somewhere between 'Brrrr' and 'colder than a plumbers wrench in February'.

School Mid-Terms ... they are BRUTAL. Attila won the spelling bee the other day, so I'm not worried about her performance in the upcoming tests, but Ghengis finds very little use for all them high-falutin' fancy words and there is nothing he cannot say without a good round-house to the solar-plexus or ridge-hand to the temple. Trying to explain the difference of 'their' and 'there' to a 6 year old is a Sisyphean labor when you learned it by wrote. Lord, have mercy on his little heart because he will be crushed if he does not perform well.

Technorati Tags:Snow | Swimming | Karate | Children | Winter | School | Work

Labels: Banalities Work, Children, Karate, School, Snow, Swimming, Winter

This was supposed to go out yesterday, but it was just too much of a poopy day. Wednesday was, as some of you know, Ash Wednesday. I celebrated my faith at lunch and only got one 'You have dirt on your head' comment. It was an awkward moment for everyone on the team as I tried to explain that it was a religious artifact, but alas, the details were lost on her. The Tyrants were somehow herded into a mass as well, but their ashes were long gone before I picked them up. It was gym day after all and it was warm enough for them to be outside. Of course, the ashes would have been wiped away when we went swimming anyways.

Not much else but me going to both TSD classes this week. So far, I think I've only missed Tuesday Adult TSD. This has only increased my exhaustion. Duh. This week is coming to a close quickly and an ominous beast awaits me me in the darkest avenue of this journey ... support beeper duty. Gha. A week of fear and loathing. I can't wait!

Technorati Tags:Work | Swimming | Karate | Children | Ash Wednesday

Labels: Ash Wednesday, Banalities Work, Children, Karate, Swimming

Nothing. Middle of the week nothing. Worse than nothing was the perfect day that expired the morn past. Kids did what I asked them to do, they did well at piano class, did extraordinarily well at TSD and I managed to survive a sparring session with TWO second degree black-belts. Sure, they were tired and I got a rest, but I still survived with minor bruises and lacerations. Other than that, the Twins got to listen to themselves from the recording they got at the radio station tour. Four of the youngsters were in the same class room so the teacher played it for the whole class. Instant celebrity!

Technorati Tags:Piano | Karate | Children | Work

Labels: Banalities Work, Children, Karate, Piano

Here I sit at the piano class waiting room. Listening to the melodic plunking of little fingers over the faux ivory ... and the periodic admonishments of the instructor to my little Imp, Ghengis. He is getting into trouble again, so it's probably time for another lecture. While I stew over my parental duties, I tried to hijack a wireless signal, to no avail. Must be the higher humidity in the air. I did get a hint ... just a wiff of a bit of a signal, only to have it melt away like foie gras on a steaming slab of porterhouse steak. Mmmm, steak. But I digress. I could titillate you with mundane tales of my work day. Where I sit with the team as we try to figure out just what in the world we plan on doing in the next sprint. Ah, yes, the scent of failure is in the air. We are probably just going to work on some left-over cruft from the last sprint cycle. The last team just DUMPED it and said they were 'done'. Not so much, really. So be it.

I've been working with the kids on finishing their dinner in a timely manner. It would be much easier if I could sit with them while they eat, but time is short and I have a heap of chore to grind through before we head off each afternoon. This is a beast of my own creation and I'm going to have to be creative (or persistent) to overcome it. Speaking of persistence, this is a TSD week. I'll be in the Child and Adult classes every day except Friday when we have a tour at WRDV with the cubs. We'll do pizza after wards before heading over to the 'Dodge Ball Session', but I'll not stay for the adult class after 1900 hours as I will be doing my bi-monthly work poker cameo ... just to bolster that coworker relationship thing. Anything to make sure I'm held in the highest esteem when the axe falls on the work-force.

Finally, can SOMEONE tell me why oil prices are staying at $40/bbl but gas prices are nearly at $2/gal? Are the refineries cutting back on production? CRAP! I just looked and the price is now at $38/bbl. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!

Technorati Tags:Gas | Swimming | Karate | Children | Scouts | Piano | Work

Labels: Banalities Work, Children, Gas, Karate, Piano, Scouts, Swimming

Hrmmm, spent the day struggling with a SNMP issue at work only to find out that someone created the issue thinking that they were checking in a configuration file for Solaris instead of SUSE linux. Major oops, since we were only deploying this to linux hosts. Heh. That's what I'm reduced to at work these days, spotting other people's missteps.

And now on to the important stuff: the perquisite benefits of being a middle-age, middle-class dad. Grab the Tyrants and stuff them full of dinner while they bang on the piano and do their 100 pages of math and spelling homework. Quickly laing waste to the tasks at hand, we grab a couple containers of 'Little Smokey Cheese Wursts' (not bacon wrapped, sorry) and head off to the drowning pool were we simulate the storming of Normandy. The Old Ladies flee in fear as the Tyrants plow into their hastily formed defenses. It was almost funny to see the looks on their faces as they skimmed over the surface of the water like pink little patrol boats sans torpedoes. Wrap that up and skip the hot tub; it was closed due to too much sloughed flesh in the intake valves. Yetch. Quick change into the TSD clothes with a second (dry) set of swimming clothing on underneath - they each get a hard boiled egg and we hit the Karate Studio. Flash forward about an hour, we have just finished sparring so the class is over. The Ever Patient Mrs glides in the door and they all run off to Swim Team Practice for 2 hours; Genghis with his Lobster Chunks, Attila with her Mandarin Orange Slices, and both with a stick of string cheese. A few hours later, I limp out of the studio after getting rolled fairly throughly and meet up with the rest of the Haupertonian Household where a roaring fire and loyal Cybernetic Mastodons bay longingly at the beginnings of a light flurry of snow coming down. Of course, that snow is quite efficient at making those mountains of dog deposits in the back 50 look more like a pristine range of Matterhorn look-alikes than what they really are: Frozen Turd Bombs. Can you believe that (aside from the nasty cold I'm battling) this is an optimal day for me?

Technorati Tags:Illness | Swimming | Karate | Children | Work

Labels: Banalities Work, Children, Piano, Swimming, Tang So Doo

Work has me in it's vile grip. Still squirming though.

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Labels: Banalities Work

Ugh. Work. Not much to say but the troglodyte mindset of some as they claw their way through their career is less than palatable to the neutral observer. The narrow minded and puerile actions that pass for fiduciary responsibility boggles the mind. Alas, my gripe is shaded by the fact that I have been on hiatus in a simpler, more joyous world of late. Once more into the breach, dear friends; work is such an ugly thing. Kids are fine ... missing the halcyon days of vacation as much as me. They continue to ask for the privileges that they were afforded then (pizza/tacos/ice cream on demand, staying up late, no manual labor, etc...) and alas, to their dismay, they are refuted. Ghengis, much to his discontent, is starting to learn about 'rewards' and why you are not given the carrot before the stick.

Technorati Tags:Gas | Swimming | Karate | Children | Work

Labels: Banalities Work, Children, Swimming, Tang So Doo

More meetings (about 6 hours worth) chowdered my day yesterday. It was an atypical day in that sense, mind you. I had a significant number of tasks that just did not get done outside of my blogging to boot. Urk. Even worse, our team has the temerity to do it again today ... and tomorrow ... and tomorrow - Creeps in this petty pace from day to day. I am not being any manner of a hyperbole when I state that the end/beginning of each 'sprint' cycle is nothing but back-to-back infomercials arranged by the Agile patrician that stalk the halls here, trying to ensure their continued power. No matter, my 'non-work' life is rich and robust enough to counter my meeting surfeit. There is the swimming ... where Miss Gwen and Ghengis's favorite young lady, Miss Steph have been seen. TSD is starting to get better. The Tyrants had nearly forgotten everything after a week hiatus. In 30 days, we have another test and this time they will be getting their Red Belts and black Dobok uniforms. Little Ninjas, on the prowl.

Spending a lot of time in the evening preparing for the birthday-bash this Friday. Week long spoilage of the Tyrants of Turpitude. I made 20 hamburger patties (special recipe), sliced up 5 racks of ribs and wrapped them in foil with the 'special sauce'. Laid out all the peripheral accouterments and sliced up the meat for the skewers. Now we just need to look into the cabbage in the garden to see if it is ready for Grams Super Special Cole-Slaw that the Mrs loves so much. Just so you all know, the Mrs is a major gear in this well oiled machinery. I may be the spring, but without her ... I'm just a tightly wound kook. Tonight, we'll slice up the cheese into chunks for the platter (durn, need tooth-picks) and maybe pull the cabbage out. Oh, so much to do. I could show you the list but it already is two pages long!

Technorati Tags:Birthday | Swimming | Karate | Children | Work

Labels: Banalities Work, Birthday, Children, Swimming, Tang So Doo

At the moment, every little thing is copacetic at the Haupertonian Manor. Oddly enough, work has been rather mundane as well. Not so much that my experience was any different than normal or that much less painful, but the delta was significant enough to make me perceive that it was normal and hum-drum. The lack of various senior officers and potentates sending one countermand after another till my email inbox was at repletion, I do believe, was most likely the impetus for that deviation from the norm. Instead, I spent my time at a miniature golf outing and then promptly attended a group luncheon at a restaurant with wretched service. The food was palatable but the waitress was counting on her natural beauty to make up for her general lack of skill in customer satisfaction. In the end, she was savvy enough to write herself in for a 20% tip which we promptly downgraded to 15%. I suppose if she had not been so audacious, she would not have benefited from our obvious largess. I do believe that standard tipping starts at 15% for acceptable service ... we did not get exactly what we ordered. The hostess was alerted to this but we most likely will not be returning.

As for the children, the tyrants are getting back into the swing of things. Swimming was as swimming does. They have new swim shoes and are happy with them ... they like throwing 'wet balls' about in the pool so they are starting to learn about treading water. It's kinda like life training, you know. TSD was as good for them as it ws for me. They were a bit off their game, but that is to be expected. We did some exercises involving a jump, combat roll and a flying side-kick that the little one's really got into. Oh, and as for their day-time activities, they were promoted to the 'Big Kids Room', meaning that it's the last stop before they are paroled as "Reformed Citizens". Of course, this means no naps which works for me. Oddly enough, they have been eating their meals entirely and I do not need to admonish them for squishing their sandwiches into a glutinous mass of bread and byproduct in the plastic baggies. No tremulous lower lips to distract me from having fun with them. It's nice to take a break from 'Mean Daddy' mode every so often. They are nearing the days of 1st grade at the local parochial school ... I'll be saving that particularly sociopathic personality for the teachers and administrators.

The garden; doing quite well. All the leaf lettuce and spinach have been ripped out by the roots except for one forlorn row of buttercrunch. At the end of June, I'll need to till that row under and replant for the bumper crop. Tomatoes are on the vine now, but the peas are destined for a fate similar to the lettuce. Broccoli is producing diminishing returns, but the cabbage is almost the size of my head now. Potatoes are ok, but need to be tended to. Beans are coming up quite nicely. Onions are the size of baseballs. Beats, golf-ball mimicry. And then there are the summer squash and zucchini ... ahh yes. Much grilling is planned for those bad-boys! My cornocopia of produce is overflowing.

Technorati Tags:Garden | Swimming | Karate | Children | Work

Labels: Banalities Work, Children, Gardening, Swimming, TSD

I've been a bit busy of late and my blogging has had to suffer for it. A flagging desire to engage in word-smithing is not the primary issue here, just a symptom. I had planned to be a bit more verbose today, but the nature of the 'end of month' planning is chewing up my schedule something fierce. Old news is new news don't you know. I'll just dredge up some of my old complaints: End of sprint cycle coming up and along with it, a litany of meetings and impulse/ad-hoc status updates. The swimming and TSD with the children is back on track. After a week off with the Grandparents, they are utterly and totally spoiled. Forgot half of their forms and could not stay standing for more than a micro-second without fiddling. I expected this. Of course, we will have a repeat of this after the 'Week of Birthday Celebration' that is planned for the 4th of July. We have a lot of planning going into that week so I hope the Tyrants appreciate it. Just the 5th will be a logistical challenge in itself. I mean, how do you slow roast a Steak-osaurus Rex!?

Bad news ... I am taking a motorcycle safety course and the final test just happens to fall on the same day as the next TSD test; August 2nd. Oh, woe is me for I shall have to take an 'In Class' test which is essentially Master Smith spending all his energy on trying to break me down. Now the test itself is no less difficult than the effort I usually put into the class every night mind you. It will just be the probability that I'll get my tush whooped something fierce during the test. What I'm doing to save a few gallons of gasoline ... I'm considering the unintended consequences now. I hear you do not need a Class M license for a motor scooter. I would surely look manly on that, no?

And because I forgot to include links: I submit thoughts on health:viatmin-D and flossing.

Technorati Tags:Dentist | Swimming | Karate | Children | Work

Labels: Banalities Work, Children, Dentist, Karate, Swimming

Still alive, work sucking life out of me ... posting shortly.

Technorati Tags:Work | Blogging

Labels: Banalities Work, Blogging

Whew ... that was a close one! Nearly had my 'Curmudgeon' License revoked for having a sunny disposition and all. It's meeting day so I'll be spending my day fending off 'action items' and on top of that, it's the end of the SCRUM Sprint. We need to meet with the Product Owner and the Customer to have a Retrospective about what we have accomplished over the last four weeks. Quite a lot actually, but since we are merely a bug fix team, we are not adding any new functionality. Just reducing Technical Debt. Not entirely glamorous, but I'm a blood-n-guts sort of guy so it suits me fine. We need only let the interested, or captive, parties know that we are continuing to improve product quality and ensure that future efforts will be boot-strapped by our efforts ... then skedaddle!

Speaking of quality and time, the Mrs fell asleep last night while snuggling with the Twin Tyrants of Turpitude. It is a fore-gone conclusion that they will ask for an innumerable number of things to avoid going to sleep every evening: Story-Time, Hugs-n-Kisses, Drink of Water, and as a last resort - snuggles. Now the Mrs is more than happy to comply when she does not have an evening teleconference with her Subversion Agents in the Pacific Rim Theater, but she must have been extraordinarily tired and thusly, was incapable to remain awake till Ghengis dropped off. Now I'm not above indulging the other with similar privileges, but after a night of TSD I tend to stink of sweat, blood and fear. It sluffs off me like a bank of fog rolling up into valleys from a greater mount of volcanic venting. So, in the early morning hours, the Mrs stumbled into the Master Suite and plopped her semi-somatic form into bed, jolting me from my usual light slumber. It took a bit of time for me to reacquire the sufficient calm to return to the dreams of angst I usually spool through. With that, of course, I had a difficult time getting out of the ever-calming embrace of the Mile-Wide Bed. I was running about 10 minutes late and paid for it on the way to work ... the Reading Railroad crossing was occupied by a rather lengthy freight train. So, it took me 17 minutes to get to work instead of 13 ... part of which was induced by missing the 6am Perfect Harmonic Light Sequence. I had to stop at THREE red lights. There goes my mpg rating!

Speaking of gasoline: This. Interesting, eh? And, with that: This. Given that only 25% of existing farmland is actually being used to produce any type of crops and the acreage we ARE using is producing more than ever, all this nonsense about food shortages seems like fear mongering to me. Can you guess what country produces the most rice? How about corn?

Technorati Tags:Gas | Food | Karate | Children | Sleep | Work

Labels: Banalities Work, Children, Food, Gas, Sleep, Tang So Doo

WOOT! Made it in before 0630 today. And I only hit the snooze bar once at 0515. As I was telling CharliePATpk at the 'ass-crack' of dawn, I used to do this sort of thing when I was younger and not a Father. I would get up around 0430, get out of the Haupertonian Keep (apartment) at 0455 and drive a bazillion miles to Wilmington (DE) or King of Prussia (PA) to work out at 0600 for an hour or so. Of course, I would not leave work till 1900 hours or so ... spirited youth - wasted in a sensory deprivation cube. Alas, my motivation now is not to dedicate my waking hours to a career in technology. Now, it is so I can LEAVE work to be with my loved ones as they are released from their mandated institutionalized education ... so I can continue with the education that they really need. Music lessons and fire-arms education are still on the back-burner.

Nothing else is noteworthy. Swimming, TSD, Adult TDS all went fairly well. The Smith Quints were at the pool today and we said hello to them. Cute kids, but their mother looked a bit harried ... go figure. Oh, and gas prices went down 1 cent. WOOT! HUGE GASOLINE MARKET CRASH!!! Yeah, right. Upside of getting on the road early is that I can hit all the lights and not spend so much time idling at red signal lights ... and avoid all the typical fender benders as well. BTW: That photo is of me and a small harem of my cousins on the Fraternal side of the Clan.

Technorati Tags:Gas | Swimming | Karate | Children | Work

Labels: Banalities Work, Children, Gas, Swimming, Tang So Doo

Another day zipped by and I barely appreciated it. I did decide to take it a bit easier today. You know, give my body a few moments to heal itself so I no longer have to deal with the odd pains or recalcitrant joints. We have that TSD test this weekend and I would like to be able to get through it with a MILD concussion and minor contusions. I left work a bit earlier after hours of back-to-back meetings so with all that extra time, I dropped off the enrollment forms at the New Advanced School for Tyrant Transformation of Warmongering Itinerate Turpitudic Siblings (NASTy TWITS). While in the neighborhood, I stopped by the location where I was going to rent a Tux, only to find that they were open Tues-Sat and not available on Mondays. Gha, same thing with my barber and I dearly need a haircut! Alas, I spent my last $20 on a second responsibility chart for the Tryants. Apparently, one was just not enough for the both of them. I can still see them now, facing off at high noon on a dusty street as the tumble-weeds roll by. Attila, flexing her 'shootin hand' as Ghengis spits out of the side of his mouth, squarely pegging a beetle scurrying over the parched planking of the nearby saloon. She calls out; "Gou-Gou! This responsibility board ain't big 'nough for the both of us. That means someone is out of luck. I'm figger'n it's gonna be you." He retorts; "I dun' think so Moi-Moi, see'n that Daddy just went and shelled out a share-cropper's budget for a second board. It's a looking like both of us are gunna be on the short end of this here stick." And so comes the realization that these gifts were actually a Trojan Horse by which the Peloponnesian Parents War will be won.

The rest of Monday was mostly a hard stinging rain. Like a cow piss'n on a flat rock, no less. I was ahead of the game this time and picked a bowl full of greens from the Agricultural Sector so that there will be enough salad for the next 2-3 days. The Lettuce, Arugula and Spinach are coming in nicely. And so are the peas, tomatoes and beans (both soy and string). In fact, nearly everything is coming up like gang-busters ... including the volunteers! A lot of pumpkin and lettuce is popping up in places I did not expect ... along with some survivors of the 'Great Carrot Massacre'. So, even though temperatures dropped precipitously over the last few days, I believe that we will do just fine in the organic 'delicate green delectables' department this year.

Now for the Gas Report. I did not eat any beans or cabbage, so gas is still up at $3.60USD/g in these parts. The Stimulus Check will not make that an easier pill to swallow (hello, supply and demand?), but at 5 gallons a week, I'll manage. It's the Mrs who is driving the Family Tank V2.0 who is paying the price for what speculators and politicians are doing. Biofuels are making things a mess and they only create more problems the closer we look at them! Of course, they are being blamed for the increased cost of food ... but read this article and tell my why food prices are going up when we are producing more food (minus the slice taken out for ethanol) than ever before!? SPECULATORS and POLITICIANS! Gha ... those two groups vex me daily.

Technorati Tags:Gas | Swimming | Karate | Children | School | Work

Labels: Banalities Work, Children, Gas, Plumbing, School, Swimming

POW! WHAM! SPLAT! And all that other good stuff. The last few hours have been rather mundane. Work has been a real bugger. I though I had messed up a bug fix but after several hours of tinkering around, I deduced that the fix was working as advertised and was failing a validation of frequency comparisons because the Encryption Modulator was set up to use a different set of QPSK/QAM settings. It worked on the dev platform where things were set up properly, the test platform was mis-configured and the code detected it. DUH! The System Integration Tester was absent once I learned of the deception ... I'll have to explain this to her at the SCRUM meeting the following morning. Fun.

The other day, Jake did WELL in TSD and swimming. I believe it was because Stephanie was present as the pool so Jake had to show off. Then, on Wednesday he was all played out so he did not do so well. We need to focus on his forms for the test that is coming up at the end of the month or he may not make the test list. Either way, he is the toughest little 5yr old Martial Arts Practitioner next to his sister. Master Smith is giving them a little more constructive criticism of late ... and they tend to listen to him a bit more so than me. If they pick up the next two forms as well as they have with the others, they should have little difficulty making their red belt. (Insert Image of Proud Daddy puffing up his chest)

A few nits and ends: Scheduled the water company to insert a water meter for the sprinkler system on Friday ... I'll wager they will not do it since I'm not going to be there. I should put a sign up were the meter should be installed out near the curb. They will probably assume they need access to the basement ... not true. Mental note; make sign. Odd thing, they did not mention that there will be a $50 surcharge for installing the meter for the summer. I think the woman who threatened me last time was bluffing to get me to go away. Grrr. I've also scheduled the sprinkler guys to come out and give the system a once over. On the same day, the AC guy is supposed to show up some time between 0900 and 1400 hours. When I asked about the wide range of time, they insisted that they might get emergency calls on Saturday and there is only one technician on call. Umm, I'm pretty sure that I'm the ONLY guy even trying to turn on the AC at this early date so their hedging is just a clumsy attempt at expectation management. Fair enough, but I'll be calling the Friday before to firm up the time. 0900 would be a much better time for me ... free up my day so I'm not sitting there, pining away for some fellow to show up like a teen-age girl waiting for her prom date. Of course, if it's some hottie in string bikini and daisy-duke cutoffs ....

Technorati Tags:Work | Swimming | Karate | Children | AC

Labels: AC, Banalities Work, Chores, Tang So Doo, Traffic

Okay, today is a meeting day. The day when all the work on everyone's plate gets cleaned off by pushing it into the salad bowl of the person to the left of you in the meeting room. Of course, while you are busily offloading your gristle to the poor soul to the left of you, the dude on the right is dumping a load of tripe into your domain. I damn near cooked myself when I left the Manor this morning by leaving my laptop sitting outside when I left. I was busy loading empty propane cylinders (gotta have them ready for all that steak I'm going to grill) into the POS SuperSaturn and set it on the plant stand ... and zipped off. The Mrs spotted it when she was leaving and brought it to the DayCare/ReEducation Facility where she arrived just as I was leaving. Good thing, I would have missed all the meetings and would not be able to defend my 'in-bowl' from tripe attacks. I might have remembered that I forgot it as I proceeded down the Mile-Long Driveway, but I spotted SeaBee Chuck, our neighbor, as I was rolling down the access road. I honked at him and waved ... and saw a small package in the center of the road as I slowed down. So, I stopped and had a short conversation with him. He was heading off to go watch the 'Masters' golf tournament with his children and asked if I could watch after his home while he was away. His Mrs was going down to the Jersey Shore that weekend so there would be nobody to note if a moving truck rolled up and emptied their home. While talking, we wandered over to where the phone was laying on the ground, turned it on and called the number in the address book listed under the 'Home' heading. There was also a letter on street addressed from Stan F******n to another person. It was Stan's phone. I let the woman (presumably his wife) know that I had found his phone, a letter and some other assorted items. They would be waiting on the front step of an address (Chucks's) that I gave to her. Lucky I spotted Charles or that phone would be a flattened mess.

Technorati Tags:Gas | Work

Labels: Banalities Work, Propane

Well, that was fairly useless. I was going to get some real work done yesterday, but that was ground down to a fine grit of erasure turds and eye boogers as I spent a great portion of my day diddling with paperwork and junk-email. My adventures into ersatz work have left me feeling empty and somewhat guilty. I need a noble (and futile) thrust into the mountain of work laid out like the craggy peaks of the Rockies or Alps to waylay my creeping disharmony. All that will change today I should hope. The sounds of the charge of the Light Brigade (Lord Alfred Tennyson) will echo out through the cavernous cube-farm of sensory deprivation chambers amongst the cacophony of importunate clacking of keyboards and singing telephones. The pleas both professional and romantic will not fall upon exasperated senses! Ummm ... ok. calm down ... whew.

Swimming and TSD with the tyrants went well. I lost my temper a bit on the trip between the two though. I need to remember that I'm a dad first. Poor Jake lost a bit of one of his transformer toys for the ump-teen millionth time and it frustrates me to no end. Not that he looses it or he does not think to watch were it went (he is a 5 year old boy after all ... things don't change much even if you are 40), its the situation that confounds me. I am unable to help him or even help myself help him. I'm on the road, crushed and battered by the lemming hordes who are all rushing to do manage their own myopic interests. Caring about the concerns of a haggard man and his limitations is the furthest thing from their mind. Heh ... displacement. I'll just have to 'redouble my efforts' in daddy-hood. Hugs and sweet words for the Twin Tyrants this afternoon.

After TSD, I dropped off the kids and went right to the back yard to till up some barren soil and plant zoysia grass. I found a lot of tuberous roots from the pachysandras that I'll need to ferret out. I'll probably be tilling again on Friday after I mow the lawn.

Technorati Tags:Work | Swimming | Karate | Children | Lawn

Labels: Banalities Work, Children, Karate, Lawn, Swimming

Something went horribly wrong at the massive Scrum meeting Monday afternoon. You see, I worked VERY hard last month to make the project I was assigned as ScrumMaster a success. So much so that I completed the entire endeavor on time and with enough surplus man-hours that I could help out with other projects. My reward is that my team is disbanded. So, I scurry about to make sure my peers get to move onto other teams (performance improvement, 'TLA' development team, etc...). All juicy projects. So, when I get a chance to tend to my own needs ... all that is left is a slot on the pre-qualification test team. Yeah, I get to make sure that OTHER PEOPLE'S WORK IS GOOD ENOUGH. WHAT!!! I'm not trying to belittle the task of doing 'PreQualification' but this is like using a 50lb Sledge to crack a walnut. I went down this path once before and now I'm going to have a word with my functional manager about withdrawing my services from this sprint. By tomorrow, either I'll have calmed down or I'll go about my business of pissing in everyone else's breakfast cereal. Then, I got home and find my home life much too enjoyable. It's like spending your day shoveling dung only to go home and be carried about on a feather soft pillow and fed sweet grapes like a victorious general. Knowing all to well that I'll have to return to the urine soaked trenches the next day to scrabble about the fetid rancid muck for a footing to resist the onslaught of barbaric louts and cretinous laggards.

Technorati Tags:Work | Scrum | Family

Labels: Agile, Banalities Work, Family, SCRUM

Ahhh, the acrid sent of train brakes brings me to discover the various misnomers abounding about the techno-sphere.So, there was more cool and confusing stuff to go over today. Of course, I'm mentally exhausted. So much information and not enough base knowledge to convert it into intelligence and practice. I'm fairly certain that a great deal of what I was blanketed with went right down the memory hole. In fact, I know it! I cannot remember what SOA is an acronym for! GHA, good thing I take copious notes about this kind of thing. Somehow, I split the skin on my index finger though so operating the 'nipple mouse' on the keyboard has been a sysiphusian endeavor. I would be a rather difficult field study for phsychologists who adhear to the pain avoidance theory. I wonder what Freud would say. Yeah, like I carry water for any of those 'old dead white europeans'. I'm more of a Maslow guy. Jung was just too much of a wierdo. Not much else to note today except that I had an extended lunch discussion about FaceBook and MySpace. Not a fan of them either. I like my interactions to be presented with more content and not just a veneer of shiny colored widgets. That's why I love all you blog fiends ... you want MORE!

Started to rain on the last day of the conference ... fortunately it let up briefly so I could walk to the Train Station without having to do a 200 meter free-style. Spring rainstorms are always so violent around here.

Karate should be interesting, picked up extra uniform. My one wash a week rule has left me smelling of a week old italian sub left under a vinal seat in august by the time Friday rolls around. The Tyrants have not had me around to keep them on track in the class, and it shows. Ah, well. Five year old Tyrants in making will do as such.

Gung-Gung is leaving this weekend. The Mrs is going to take him up to NYC so she will be absent for a few days. That means I will have to entertain the little hot-heads for the time being. I have a bunch of flowers and veggies that need to go into the ground so that should keep them occupied for a bit. I still have not been able to locate any tomatoes and that will require an extra trip when I do. I'll need a bit of soil to replace the missing stuff in the herb beds. So much to do, so little time. At least I'll have two 'helpers' to take some of the trouble away. Right?

Final note; today is the last day of the 'Scrum' so I'll be spending most of my day in meetings, reviews and retrospectives. Not much real work will get done but I'll have the opportunity to sleep in a bit and go to work late, for I will miss NOTHING.

Technorati Tags:Work | Swimming | Karate | Children

Labels: Banalities Work, Children, Karate, Swimming