Head Shrinker
Hello World,
Happy August! Although this is certainly the time of year for the weather gods to "release the hounds," it still seems early in the month for the fabled "dog days of August," and personally, I'm with the Baja Men in wondering, "Who Let the Dogs Out?" But you can believe me that they are certainly out in force here in the local area, and barking up a storm, with sweltering temperatures and oppressive humidity that would absolutely not make anyone want to hum-a-ditty, and that's putting it mildly.
So here it is August, and what better time to trot out once again, one of my favorite sports poems of all-time? By way of introduction, the Busch family has been famous throughout many generations, not only for their breweries, but also as owners of sports teams such as the St. Louis Cardinals. This little bit of doggerel was written by a New York Knicks fan and sent to Sports Illustrated circa 1972:
August was Busch
But Dave was
DeBusschere
Well, I don't see any way to improve upon that. And since it's August, and so is he, we could go right ahead and call him Augie Doggie Busch, and see how we've come full circle back to the dog days once again. And I don't mind saying, you're welcome to them.
For people who were wondering, I will say that this was a better week at work than last week, although not due to any improvement in staffing, which would have been ideal, if far-fetched. But after two weeks of doing two jobs at once, I got a better handle on things and everything seemed a lot more under control. I also completed the preliminary phase of my third job, which was clearing out the spare office for our new alien resident, so she could move her own furniture and belongings in, and now have only the closet left to do, which can wait for another time. Luckily I had already put away the Christmas tree, or we'd be re-visiting that wandering holiday paraphernalia all over again. Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la.
Another improvement over last week was a reduction in the amount of people who crawled out of the woodwork and made pests of themselves by calling or coming over with the most ridiculous problems, questions and commentary, when I really had no time to deal with them and even less patience. It's one thing for co-workers not to be of any help at all, but I draw the line when they instead turn into the biggest obstacles to my progress. I don't know if it was the pile of shrunken heads in the corner of my office that finally put them off, or the Fates took pity on me at long last, but their productivity impediments really slacked off this week, compared to last week. Actually, in some ways it was too bad, because I think with just three more shrunken heads, I would have had enough to trade them in on a toaster oven, and now I'll probably be stuck with the travel alarm clock instead.
Meanwhile on the home front, the witch doctors waved their chicken bones and palm fronds over my computer, and pronounced it DOA with no hope of recovery. The hard drive seemed to have developed a bad sector, which rendered the operating system, well, a non-operating system, I suppose. A full-scale disaster was only narrowly averted, thanks to two factors. One is that most of my older data files, documents, pictures and music were already on my secondary drive, which was being used for storage since it's bigger than my primary drive, so they were in no danger of being lost or corrupted. The other, of course, was Bill, who is not always recognized as a technical genius but should be, who attached my old bad drive to his portable hard drive and was able to recover my current files off of it, bypassing the disabled operating system altogether. He was not only worlds better than the witch doctors with their rattles and entrails, but besides that, the price was certainly right. He may be worth his weight in gold, but in the current economic climate, he may have to settle to a handful of shrunken heads instead.
Unfortunately, the only cure for a broken hard drive is a new hard drive, which can be a real improvement in terms of size and performance, but as everyone knows, the problem with a new drive is that it comes completely blank. It's nice to have all of your documents safe and secure, but without any programs to use them with, the computer's functionality is about on a par with the federal government. (Oh, hit that easy target!) I was glad that the witch doctors sent my computer back running Windows XP, but that was it, and there wasn't even Windows Office or anything else installed. Anyone who's ever been through this, and our name is legion, knows that loading software can be a hit-or-miss proposition at best, and at worst, well, a pile of shrunken heads would only be the beginning. I spent all of one day installing software with mixed results, mostly because of outdated programs that I still like, but which are no longer supported by their companies, if in fact, the companies still exist. (One of my quaint older programs was trying to submit my registration electronically to their headquarters, and instead, woke up some poor little old lady in Dubuque!) What ends up happening for the most part is that you take one step forward and two steps backward, as each new program either runs or doesn't run, or even worse, makes the program ahead of it that had been running, suddenly stop running for no reason. After a whole day like that, where you spend most of your time waiting for your computer to reboot for the umpteenth time, you really start to question whether technology is just another way of the gods toying with us.
Friday night after dinner, I was planning to make some real headway in restoring my files and documents back to their original configuration, so I could get back to using my computer for actual work instead of just fiddling with it. That was my plan anyway, and I'm sure it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the storm clouds brewing on the horizon of this scenario, not by any means. It had been beastly hot and miserably humid all day, and although it had been beautifully clear, no one would have been surprised to hear thunder rolling in after dark, and the pitter-patter of rain on the window screens. The surprise came a while later, when the floodgates opened up, the rain came pelting down in sheets, and ushered in the mother and father of all thunderstorms, with pounding hail, bolts of lightning everywhere, and booming thunderclaps that shook the house to its foundations. The cats fled in terror under the furniture, in spite of being grizzled veterans of the streets, which tells you something about this storm right there. I got on the floor in the living room trying to calm down RaggMopp, who was hunkered down under a table and panting in wide-eyed panic, when the lights flickered. I jumped up and saved what I had been working on at my computer, but I wasn't worried. The lights flickered again, and then a few more times after that, and then they went out for good. It was 10:15, and we were going to be in for a long hot night of it. Somewhere far away, the technology gods were laughing their heads off. Little, tiny shrunken heads, I'll bet you.
Luckily we have a rechargeable flashlight close at hand, so I was able to see my way around to close things up and put stuff out of the way before going upstairs. The rain did nothing to cool anything down, and I'll tell you, for two people who had been looking forward to air conditioning all day, trying to sleep under those conditions had nothing to recommend it. In fact, anyone who invents a battery-powered air conditioner has my vote for President of these United States, sight unseen. Later, it occurred to me how lucky we are that indoor plumbing is one of very few things in modern life that has never been improved with the addition of electricity, or other enhancements that rely on technology to function. Toilets are entirely mechanical in operation, while sinks utilize the power of gravity for their purposes, and at times like Friday night, this is something that we should truly rejoice about. Unlike electricity, which can be a sometimes thing, at least we never have to worry about an interruption of gravity, because even the technology gods, blast their tiny little shrunken heads, can't pull that one off. After a couple of weeks like I've had, I realize we should all be grateful for small favors, and the fact that we are all safe from the effects of a "gravity blackout" has just gone right to the top of my list of things to be grateful for. Without it, I'd be picking that pile of shrunken heads off the ceiling of my office instead, and heaven knows, I don't have time for that.
Happy August! Although this is certainly the time of year for the weather gods to "release the hounds," it still seems early in the month for the fabled "dog days of August," and personally, I'm with the Baja Men in wondering, "Who Let the Dogs Out?" But you can believe me that they are certainly out in force here in the local area, and barking up a storm, with sweltering temperatures and oppressive humidity that would absolutely not make anyone want to hum-a-ditty, and that's putting it mildly.
So here it is August, and what better time to trot out once again, one of my favorite sports poems of all-time? By way of introduction, the Busch family has been famous throughout many generations, not only for their breweries, but also as owners of sports teams such as the St. Louis Cardinals. This little bit of doggerel was written by a New York Knicks fan and sent to Sports Illustrated circa 1972:
August was Busch
But Dave was
DeBusschere
Well, I don't see any way to improve upon that. And since it's August, and so is he, we could go right ahead and call him Augie Doggie Busch, and see how we've come full circle back to the dog days once again. And I don't mind saying, you're welcome to them.
For people who were wondering, I will say that this was a better week at work than last week, although not due to any improvement in staffing, which would have been ideal, if far-fetched. But after two weeks of doing two jobs at once, I got a better handle on things and everything seemed a lot more under control. I also completed the preliminary phase of my third job, which was clearing out the spare office for our new alien resident, so she could move her own furniture and belongings in, and now have only the closet left to do, which can wait for another time. Luckily I had already put away the Christmas tree, or we'd be re-visiting that wandering holiday paraphernalia all over again. Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la.
Another improvement over last week was a reduction in the amount of people who crawled out of the woodwork and made pests of themselves by calling or coming over with the most ridiculous problems, questions and commentary, when I really had no time to deal with them and even less patience. It's one thing for co-workers not to be of any help at all, but I draw the line when they instead turn into the biggest obstacles to my progress. I don't know if it was the pile of shrunken heads in the corner of my office that finally put them off, or the Fates took pity on me at long last, but their productivity impediments really slacked off this week, compared to last week. Actually, in some ways it was too bad, because I think with just three more shrunken heads, I would have had enough to trade them in on a toaster oven, and now I'll probably be stuck with the travel alarm clock instead.
Meanwhile on the home front, the witch doctors waved their chicken bones and palm fronds over my computer, and pronounced it DOA with no hope of recovery. The hard drive seemed to have developed a bad sector, which rendered the operating system, well, a non-operating system, I suppose. A full-scale disaster was only narrowly averted, thanks to two factors. One is that most of my older data files, documents, pictures and music were already on my secondary drive, which was being used for storage since it's bigger than my primary drive, so they were in no danger of being lost or corrupted. The other, of course, was Bill, who is not always recognized as a technical genius but should be, who attached my old bad drive to his portable hard drive and was able to recover my current files off of it, bypassing the disabled operating system altogether. He was not only worlds better than the witch doctors with their rattles and entrails, but besides that, the price was certainly right. He may be worth his weight in gold, but in the current economic climate, he may have to settle to a handful of shrunken heads instead.
Unfortunately, the only cure for a broken hard drive is a new hard drive, which can be a real improvement in terms of size and performance, but as everyone knows, the problem with a new drive is that it comes completely blank. It's nice to have all of your documents safe and secure, but without any programs to use them with, the computer's functionality is about on a par with the federal government. (Oh, hit that easy target!) I was glad that the witch doctors sent my computer back running Windows XP, but that was it, and there wasn't even Windows Office or anything else installed. Anyone who's ever been through this, and our name is legion, knows that loading software can be a hit-or-miss proposition at best, and at worst, well, a pile of shrunken heads would only be the beginning. I spent all of one day installing software with mixed results, mostly because of outdated programs that I still like, but which are no longer supported by their companies, if in fact, the companies still exist. (One of my quaint older programs was trying to submit my registration electronically to their headquarters, and instead, woke up some poor little old lady in Dubuque!) What ends up happening for the most part is that you take one step forward and two steps backward, as each new program either runs or doesn't run, or even worse, makes the program ahead of it that had been running, suddenly stop running for no reason. After a whole day like that, where you spend most of your time waiting for your computer to reboot for the umpteenth time, you really start to question whether technology is just another way of the gods toying with us.
Friday night after dinner, I was planning to make some real headway in restoring my files and documents back to their original configuration, so I could get back to using my computer for actual work instead of just fiddling with it. That was my plan anyway, and I'm sure it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the storm clouds brewing on the horizon of this scenario, not by any means. It had been beastly hot and miserably humid all day, and although it had been beautifully clear, no one would have been surprised to hear thunder rolling in after dark, and the pitter-patter of rain on the window screens. The surprise came a while later, when the floodgates opened up, the rain came pelting down in sheets, and ushered in the mother and father of all thunderstorms, with pounding hail, bolts of lightning everywhere, and booming thunderclaps that shook the house to its foundations. The cats fled in terror under the furniture, in spite of being grizzled veterans of the streets, which tells you something about this storm right there. I got on the floor in the living room trying to calm down RaggMopp, who was hunkered down under a table and panting in wide-eyed panic, when the lights flickered. I jumped up and saved what I had been working on at my computer, but I wasn't worried. The lights flickered again, and then a few more times after that, and then they went out for good. It was 10:15, and we were going to be in for a long hot night of it. Somewhere far away, the technology gods were laughing their heads off. Little, tiny shrunken heads, I'll bet you.
Luckily we have a rechargeable flashlight close at hand, so I was able to see my way around to close things up and put stuff out of the way before going upstairs. The rain did nothing to cool anything down, and I'll tell you, for two people who had been looking forward to air conditioning all day, trying to sleep under those conditions had nothing to recommend it. In fact, anyone who invents a battery-powered air conditioner has my vote for President of these United States, sight unseen. Later, it occurred to me how lucky we are that indoor plumbing is one of very few things in modern life that has never been improved with the addition of electricity, or other enhancements that rely on technology to function. Toilets are entirely mechanical in operation, while sinks utilize the power of gravity for their purposes, and at times like Friday night, this is something that we should truly rejoice about. Unlike electricity, which can be a sometimes thing, at least we never have to worry about an interruption of gravity, because even the technology gods, blast their tiny little shrunken heads, can't pull that one off. After a couple of weeks like I've had, I realize we should all be grateful for small favors, and the fact that we are all safe from the effects of a "gravity blackout" has just gone right to the top of my list of things to be grateful for. Without it, I'd be picking that pile of shrunken heads off the ceiling of my office instead, and heaven knows, I don't have time for that.
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 6:11 PM
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