Archive of Marcia's Musings June 11-17, 2001
Sunday, June 17, 2001
Happy Father's Day!
To those of you who are and for those of you who aren't, hug yours today cuz you should. If you can't hug 'im, call 'im!!
Another Day's Difference
The difference being what I thought would happen but didn't happen and what I hadn't even remotely planned for happening instead. Brian and I made our usual Costco and grocery store run this morning. Upon our arrival home, Brian informed me that he was going to start the laundry. I had no idea that he even wanted to run the laundry today so that was a surprise. He sorted the laundry while I put away the groceries and stuff and then, I went to another grocery store for a couple of things I couldn't find at our usual store. Came away with one success out of three items that I was looking for-- close enough!
After getting home again, I cleaned up a couple of things on my computer and waited for it to be "my turn" at the laundry. I prefer the hanging and folding part of laundry to the starting of laundry so, I set off to start hanging and folding and, Brian came down to carry stuff up. He helped with a bit of the last folding and then, I came upstairs, put "Cast Away" in the DVD and started ironing. Good flick!! Definitely interesting and, I found the part with him on the island as oddly peaceful. Still don't understand that one . . . Anyway, when I finished the ironing (I swear that every cotton thing I own was washed today!!), I laid down to rest my back and got hooked on another movie called "Deception". A little known-- my guess anyway-- movie with Liam Neeson and Andie McDowell. Pretty good, all things considered.
That brings us up to the present except for the pair of shorts that I fixed for Brian, the dishes I washed and the dishwasher getting loaded and started. Man, my life is just one thrill after another, isn't it?? I know-- try to hold yourself back, okay?
I'm going to enjoy a pedicure tonight-- I really need a good soaking!! Then, it'll be just a matter of getting ready to go back to work tomorrow morning. Yuck!! No matter what you do on a weekend, the weekends are never long enough, are they? Oh, well, I should be used to it by now, eh?
Brian's going to be cooking a chicken stir fry for us tonight so that'll be tasty, I'm sure. You have a nice evening, 'kay? 'Kay!
Saturday, June 16, 2001Slow Start, Busy Middle, Slow End
So far, that's the best way to encapsulize our day-- we slept late for us-- until well after 9am! Man, that felt good!! It was 11:30 before I had my shower or got my day going at all-- the neighbor that I'd helped last weekend dropped by to return our Advil (no, not our only supply of it but she didn't know that) and I was still in my jammies!! Yeesh!!
Then, I went on the web because Brian and I had been talking about finding a new file cabinet and shelf system for the corner in my "office" in the living room. To date, we hadn't had much luck so I went on the web and found a supposedly close by location of a major chain store. Amazingly, it was a totally unrelated chain store when we got to the address so that was the end of that trek-- or so I thought! Brian turned a couple of corners and we started going through every major name of "depot" store and finally wound up at Office Depot where we found a combination that made both of us happy. This afternoon, he assembled the hutch and cabinet and I spent the rest of the afternoon, combining the contents of the file cabinet and other storage unit into the new unit. It looks really nice and, if I know Brian, now that it is a "presentable corner", he may even take a picture or two for you to see tomorrow.
Now, after I've paid bills-- and re-aligned the new checks in the Quicken printer program-- and reprinted the checks, my day is winding down slower and slower. I like that . . .
I have no idea about tomorrow-- today didn't turn out as I had expected it so why bother to plan for tomorrow? Cool philosophy if you think about it!!
On that note, I'm going to have another think about it. ;>) Have a nice evening!
Friday, June 15, 2001Short Update
First, because there's not much to post about and second because it is "Date Night" at the Bilbrey Belfry. Brian's going to make some of his killer pesto and pasta tonight (along with a salad of fresh greens, etc.) and then, its on to "Catch-22". I've never seen the movie and, as Brian so deftly noted, "The schools I grew up in wouldn't let me read the book" so I have no idea what the story is about in any case.
Solid day at work-- lots to do and what feels like, nothing done. I spent the better part of four hours un-infecting my system. Because of all of the non-disclosure agreements I receive, I am constantly paying attention to possible viruses. While I haven't had any alerts lately, I did somehow manage to receive a couple of viruses from someone-- I had over 250 infected files so, after I cleaned them out of my drive, I re-ran the Norton Utilities and the McAfee Virus Scan and came up clean-- again. This is the second time in a month that everything has been scrubbed from my system. Yeesh!!
Oh, well, at least it happened this early in the end-of-quarter month-- any later and I'd've killed myself, I think!!
Well, we're off to start our date-- You have a nice evening, too!!
Thursday, June 14, 2001More of the Same
The question is, which "The Same" am I talking about? It was more of the same of hurry up and wait at work in that one of the government contracts that I've been working on has been put on the back burner until after the first of the new quarter (July). Another government maintenance renewal has been moved up to the front burner, however, with the heat turned up to a horrid temperature something similar to the outside temperatures here in Sunnyvale. Oh, yes, that's more of the same, too-- it is here today!!! Have I mentioned that I don't like Hot? Well, let me say it for you then:
I've been waiting for it to cool down so I could do the dishes from our lunches (Rubbermaid products just sorta ferment leftover mayonnaise to this disgusting shade of yellow in this heat). I have already eaten because, frankly, I can't wait as long as Brian can to eat-- I need to eat before 8pm. If I don't, I might as well just apply the food to my hips!! I do, however, eat oddly when I don't have him to eat with me, i.e., I had chips and salsa and corn on the cob. (I could be a vegetarian if it weren't for that "I like chicken" thing, ya know?)
One day, when my desk is cleaned off, I'll have Brian take a picture of my desk in relationship to the front door. Then you'll understand why I can't sit at my computer until after the sun goes down. It was hot today and, if we closed the door, it is even hotter inside the apartment so that doesn't work. I had to wait to do some photo updates for my sister's site because I couldn't sit at the computer!!
Okay, so I gotta go wash the dishes now and I'm gonna take a shower so I can cool down, too. The good news is that my cold is pretty much gone-- it seems to be lingering a bit in the back of my throat but I think, if the temperatures go down tomorrow, I'm going to try to do a little cycling in the afternoon after work. I'm always amazed at how much I miss it when I don't cycle for a few days.
Have a nice evening!
Wednesday, June 13, 2001That was Fun!
My day started out in conversation with Bob Thompson as to why I was being sent to an Outlook class. The unfortunate part is that that was the high-point of my day!!
I don't know why I was sent other than the fact that I'm married to The Geek so much of this stuff comes "naturally" (or so I've fooled them!) while they are all lost, sometimes just on how to or whether they should keep the Outlook window open during the course of a business day! Thanks to Tom's book, I was able to learn a bunch of stuff over the past two months but, there were a couple of little problems that I had that I couldn't seem to get answers to the questions from our MIS department. This, as Bob found out this morning, is one of my most frustrating areas of concern. The MIS department doesn't know all of the answers, doesn't train their people, doesn't buy manuals and books that can help them support their clients and, as a result, when a problem comes up that they don't have the answer to, they say it can't be done with the program. That way, of course, it isn't their fault but Microsoft's! (If I never mentioned before, MIS didn't want to transfer to Outlook from Lotus Notes but, Lotus Notes was going away so they didn't have a choice.)
An example is that all of the people in my department have gotten a warning saying that we have or are about to run out of space on the server. They tell us to set up "Personal Files" but they don't tell us how to do that. When hearing that "instruction", I think "Okay, I've got that set up already because I've got the files under my Inbox set up-- so what are they talking about?" They failed to give anyone the instructions of how to go in and create Personal Files on the hard drive-- no wonder all of our mail is sitting on the server!! We aren't told how to move it but, that is the one thing I learned in the class today so at least that can be resolved for the others at the office.
According to the instructor (whom, did I mention, is approximately 4-1/2 years old!) it isn't possible for our systems people to set us up differently. Each desktop's configuration of Outlook is different and has been from the beginning. He says its impossible to do that but, OUR systems people have figured it out-- truly scary. They can figure out how to mess with us but they can't resolve issues-- Yeesh!!
On a humorous note, at about 2pm this afternoon, one of my fellow classmates raised her hand: "My Outlook just went completely away-- I don't know what I did but its just gone. How do I get it back?" Yes, I was a bit beyond the level of this class-- indeed!!
**********
So that was the extent of my day-- exciting, huh? Yeah, well-- we can't all be thrill-a-minute people!!
Its a little warm here tonight but, I suffered through it to cook dinner already and even have the dishes done. Wow!! Now if I could just cool down!!
Have a nice evening!
Tuesday, June 12, 2001Redneck Geek
If you no longer remember that there are classified ads in a newspaper, you must be a redneck geek with a DSL connection.
If you no longer remember how to start your dial-up connection, you must be a redneck geek with a DSL connection.
I'm sure there are dozens more out there-- no, we do not have to think of all of them in one lifetime-- but those are two of the humorous situations that have occurred tonight. The second one is related to the fact that, you see, as I type this update at 7:48pm, we here at the Bilbrey Belfry have no online connection. Oh, yeah, we have dial-up, once I remembered how to start it upbut even as I type, there's no guarantee that you'll see this tonight or tomorrow or whenever. Dial-up, however, does not a published webpage make when the server is not connected to Speakeasy!!
The first Redneck Geek has to do with our admin at work (Nina) asking if Brian had checked the newspaper for job ads. Newspaper? You mean that thing that people use for moving? Wow! What a concept!!! I was laughing pretty hard when I called Brian cuz he hadn't thought of it either-- its amazing how much you get addicted to the internet without really knowing that you are, isn't it?
Nerdette?
Speaking of Nina, she and I are going to go to a class tomorrow, too. We're going to an Outlook class because I'm married to The Geek, they figure that makes me one and therefore I'm the most logical choice for going to get trained on Outlook. Of course, now that we've had it for two months, I don't know that there's anything any of us need to get trained on but there are a couple of "hard" questions that no one seems to be able to get answered at our company. Even the system administrators can't answer some of the questions so "we" will be going to the class tomorrow to "learn" Outlook.
Better Still
Although I'm a bit stuffy at the present time (I left my cold medicine at work and I'm taking the fall-back which isn't as good which is why its the "Fall Back" medicine), I'm still feeling a bit better. I was pretty tired when I came home from work today though.
Part of that tiredness could come from trying to figure out this State government contract that I'm working on these days. Yowza!! Talk about garbage-in-garbage-out!! But, that's the way that they operate so, that's the way that I'll be operating, too, I guess. I've got to retrain my entire thought process, ya know? Yeesh!!
I guess that's all for me for tonight-- don't have any particular plans for the evening. Hope ya'll get to see this at some point and have a nice evening if ya do!!
Monday, June 11, 2001Better, Thanks!
I do feel better today, but still not 100%. I came home early because I wasn't worth two cents at work so what was the point? I don't like leaving work early but I brought my laptop home and kept up on voicemails from here.
The weekend wasn't a total wash: about 6:30pm last night, one of our neighbors called and asked for a ride to the urgent care center. Jan and Scott had gone to friends for the evening, spent the night and then, in the middle of the night, she tripped on her way from the bathroom, fell down and fell down hard. She didn't know where she was so didn't put her hands and arms to catch herself and, as a result, fell very hard, hitting a dresser on the way down. She has a lovely bruise and, yes, two or three of her ribs are broken. I took her to the urgent care center and made sure that she got her meds last night in addition to Brian and I sharing our dinner with her. (Scott had gone to Southern California to spend a few days with his mother and, when he had left, Jan was feeling okay-- it progressed to the point of being a lot of pain by 6:30.)
The Face of Evil
As I wrote the first paragraph above, the news was showing Robert Nigh's "speech" from this morning. I had questioned whether I would post anything today . . . I was leaning toward not rendering my opinion again but, after seeing his statements, I feel that I want to say something.
~~~~~
I slept like crap last night. Brian thought it was because of my cold but it wasn't. It was because of the face of evil that we were being exposed to on a daily, hourly, nightly basis. His attorneys tried to paint a picture of him as though he were a victim of our government again. He wasn't-- he was the face of evil.
I've thought about it for awhile now-- if you want revenge on the government, you blow up a building that is STRICTLY government and you blow it up when there is no one in it-- like on a Saturday or a Sunday or a federal holiday. If you want to avenge the death of one person, you kill one person you don't kill 167 other people on top of it. If you want to avenge an action by the government, you draw that action out against yourself and perpetrate your action against it on a singular basis, i.e., mano a mano.
You don't kill 168 people and call the score: "168 to 1". That's just sick.
As some have said, I don't want to see him tortured or blown up or made to endure the kind of heartache that other people are going to endure for the rest of their lives as a result of his actions. I just want it to be done-- it is an act of cowardice taking care of another act of cowardice. The act of cowardice that took place this morning is, as one of his attorneys stated, because he didn't want to spend the rest of his days in prison, knowing he would never get out. So he chose this act of cowardice instead and, on top of it, is trying to place the blame for it on the government as well.
I tossed and turned all night. I replayed things in my mind to try to get a sense of remorse from him. There was none to retrieve, of course.
My final thought so I could get to sleep? "May God have mercy on his soul." I knew He wouldn't give any more mercy than that face of evil gave his own victims. Maybe that's the way it should be so that we learn from this, if that is possible.
~~~~~
Mr. Nigh tried to put a human face on him but, I don't see how that could be possible. He was not a sargent in an army that someone could put on a recruiting poster; he was not a son with dreams to fulfill; he was not a brother to be looked up to-- he was the face of evil.
I have purposely not put his name in this post-- I don't want the webcrawlers to catch it and show it as something that is searchable in the future. I want to put this face of evil behind us so that we can move on as a nation, trying to make a better government from the inside so that no more people have to die to change the way that the government reacts to internal strife.
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