Archive for October, 2005
27 Oct
I suppose an update’s in order.
The Class
I’m in Appleton this week taking two courses with New Horizons to prepare for the Microsoft Certified Desktop Support Technician tests and certification. I have good classmates; they’re both from regional companies and are both here to learn as much as they can. Our class, though, is wierd. And sucky.
Our teacher is an ex-navy petty officer who used to deal with “special weapons,” aka “the bomb.” After getting shot up (and apparently carrying a bullet to this day), he became a mason, then went to school and worked his way into IT. He’s a pretty knowlageable guy, has a lot of certifications, and apparently, a lot of experience. What he doesn’t have a lot of is teaching experience or savy.
He let the class use too much time bullshitting on Monday, then pushed us like hell Tuesday and Wednesday because we “had to cover the material.” Never mind the fact that we didn’t really do more than “underline the third sentence in the second paragraph on page 18 because you’re going to need to know that.” Never mind that we’ve been able to make maybe one of our seven lab projects work they way they’re supposed to (but who knows why that one worked?). Never mind that each time I have a question that goes a little beyond the surface of the material we’re covering,my answer is one of:
- “I don’t know, but I’ll get back to you,” sans follow-through
- “The lab’s not set up like a real machine; you can’t expect everything to work.”
- “Did the instructions tell you to do that? Just follow the instructions word for word.” Which is, of course, just a great way to learn to troubleshoot, which is what this class is about.
We have a new book (and actually, a new class) for today and tomorrow, so maybe since the bullshitting is out of the way, class will go better. I’m not holding my breath.
The Hotel
Since this class is in Appleton, I’m staying in the Best Western Midway, in a business-class room. But apparently, the party-class room is right next door, the porn-class room is two doors down, the symphony-class room is kitty-corner from my room, the whiny-dog-class room is kitty-corner the other way, and the construction-class room is directly across the hall.
The bed is uncomfortable, the pillows are extremely uncomfortable, and the heating/cooling unit in the room is either broken, without a control unit, or both. The “full, complimentary breakfast” consists of coffe, juice, some poor-ass broken-down fruit, a few types of cereal, a bunch of crap you can put in a toaster, and a copy of USA Today.
Lest I forget to mention the smell. O, that 30-year-old stale cigarette smoke, weaving it’s gnarled tendrils around the evaporated industrial cleaners in the carpet, cutting holes in the perfume/cologne miasma of the business/porn/party/symphony/pet/construction-class wing of the Best Western.
But at least when I was soaking in the hot tub last night, the Buff Aisan Guy on the balcony leered at me while he filled his ice bucket. Yeah, thank god for that.
21 Oct
So this is a test post from my new post-Alpha, pre-Beta install of <a href=”http://www.flock.com”> Flock</a>. It integrates my Flickr account and my social tagging (not that I have all that much right now). Interesting tool.
20 Oct
The Big Woods Big Band needed to get to an island in the Apostles for a gig and their regular boat driver was indisposed, so I volunteered. They all piled onto a 21-foot dual motor T-craft and we headed for open water after I made a beautiful engine-only turn around the end of the breakwater.
Except it wasn’t open water. It was really shallow water with big clumps of grass and trees sticking out. I already had the engines at full throttle, so I had to concentrate on steering the boat. As I was doing that, I was trying to explain to Ron, the leader of the band, that this sort of boat essentially skids across the water when you turn it at high speed, so the odds were pretty good that I’d hit something.
Of course, the going got harder the closer we got to our destination. There were more clumps and less water all the time, and finally, we just plain ran out. Or maybe “ran up” is more appropriate since the boat slid up the shore of a smallish island. I told Ron that our lack of a graceful landing was entirely my fault since I couldn’t react quickly enough to miss the land.
We went into a small, well-kept house and we sat down and made ourselves comfortable. By “we” I mean Meagan, Melanie, Michael, and a few friends from around here, but I didn’t get a good look at their faces. I’m not quite sure what happened to the band. No one seemed too worried about it.
The woman who lived in the house was a light keeper out in the islands, and had been out there for 30 years. Her bungalow was filled with all sorts of nautical paraphenilia from over the years; timetables, lamps, nets, you name it. We all sat down and struck up a couple of conversations around the group while Michael took a sharpie and started adding to the shipping timetable on one of the porch windows. He put down the heading “Googled,” then started writing out the listings he had committed to memory.
The rest of us were pretty impressed. Except the keeper. She was worried about her windows.
19 Oct
The information in this e-mail is nothing special and may be read by anyone who understands it and can capture it either in transit or on the far end. If, however, it leads you down a rabit warren of confusion, and you ultimately end up having to reinstall your OS, that’s too bad. Of course, you *could* hire me to help you out with that problem, but whatever.
19 Oct
So before six this morning, I had built a fire, fed and watered the chickies, peed and fed the dogs, fed the cats, taken a shower, and cleaned up the coffee I spilled all over the floor. Not bad for an hour’s work.
17 Oct
So, just so there’s something in this blog that’s not, well, snark ;-), check this out:
—-BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK—-
V 3.1
GH/IT/CC d-(–) s++:++ a c+(++++)$ UL++(+++) P
L++ E— W+++$ N+ w+ M+ PS+ PE Y+ PGP+ t- 5- X+
R tv— b++ DI++ D+ G- e++ h* r+++ y++++**
—-END GEEK CODE BLOCK—-
Do the math.
17 Oct
Rant Warning
I hate things that are written like, well, this. Maybe that was cute back in 1993 when I saw it for the first time, and then when copied it a couple more times. Now though, it’s, well, everywhere. And written by people who oughtta know, well, better.
OMFG!
Knock it off, well, already. Just say what you’re gonna, well, say, and be done with it. If you’re at risk of repeating yourself, break out the thesaurus and find a different, well, word. I mean, jumpin’ Jesus on a pogo stick, people; go butcher someone else’s well, language.
Offenders
Please note that I am not necessarially picking on the sites listed below; in fact, to be part of this list means that I read the site fairly regularly. And I’ll be updating this list with the latest offenders at the top so the four of you who occasionally drop by can easily go find folks who have more productive things to do with their binanry corner of the intranet.
12 Oct
You know how when you have a big day tomorrow and you keep tossing and turning through the night just waiting for your alarm to go off so you can get started? That’s how I was last night waiting for five o’clock this morning.
See, last night, I made my 348th firm resolution to sit down and just do the frickin’ writing. And here I am, sitting in an uncomfortable chair, hoody covering my head, waiting for coffee, like Godot.
11 Oct
I’m trying to get back into the swing of reviewing music for Indie-Music.com. You can see my latest review of electronica/soundtrack artists E.S. Posthumus at this cleverly disguised link.
11 Oct
It’s been a while, but yesterday, I got to chug another can of whoop-ass. While recovering from a long weekend of making firewood, I had a long but productive day at work, intense but fruitful jazz band practice, and then brought home a nice collection of bruises and gimp from taijutsu.
It was a good day, but man, I could sleep for another four or five hours.